A long walk for peace.

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May 5 by Magiting

This is my last day in Manuke. I will be staying in a different place tonight. It is really a very great experience to stay here in Manuke. Very laid back and a very safe place. It is a budget dormitory and you can cook. so if you plan to stay here in Koenji, Tokyo, You might want to try Manuke Guesthouse.

In my experience, everyone respects the sleeping room. No one is noisy and no one smokes. Well maybe most of them are already tired when they come inside the room so they only have to put their backs on the bed and sleep.

Kitchen has everything and of course clean toilet and bath. And there is a desktop computer that you can use for free. But mostly we use it to watch NBA and listen to loud rock, blues, alternative, reggae music… name it, except for hiphop and pop.

In the afternoon, I met with Ai Satoh from Gensuikyo in Koenji station and she brought me to the National Olympics Memorial Youth Center (NYC) in Shibuya. It was built in 1964 for the Tokyo Olympics. It is nice to see this structure that is very well maintained. I think that is how good the Japanese are in building structures. It was designed like it was not from the 60’s.

I joined today’s activity with the Tokyo group which is composed of representatives from Gensuikyo, students, chorus, singers, actors groups, and other participants of the Peace March. There is Mr. Akira Okuma who can play sanshin (okinawa guitar), accordion and the normal 6 string guitar. He also teaches us the Peace March songs and chants.

There is Ai-chan who went with Malaya in last year’s Peace March. Tiro-san who is also a former through peace marcher. Kajiyama-san is my buddy and my translator in Tokyo. Bun-chan is a through peace marcher in 2010. They are all from Gensuikyo, They are always happy to be with. It’s like they don’t get tired.

There is also Ms. Tomoyo Yamazaki from KYUENKAI Human IR Japan Association for Social Justice and Human Rights. She helps a lot of people especially prisoners who were wrongfully accused, and other people who are victims of injustice.

There is Kikuchi and Katayama-san, Mr. Yamada, Akiyo Kutarano, Mr. Shuko Fujimoto who took some videos. Yuriko-san, Shun Tanaka and Reine Sakota taught us how to dance and play the eisa (okinawa drums).

We made a lot of eisa from used cardboards and it sounds good.

After the practice we proceeded to our room inside the Olympic Village. It has a lot of rooms. We stayed in a room for 4, and it’s also very comfortable stay. It’s quiet even though there’s a lot of students. There is also a common bathroom where there is hot pool inside. They said it is cheap to stay there but I don’t know if it is open to all especially adults or foreigners. Next time I will ask.